Game Dev Tycoon by Greenheart Games
Greetings fellow indie gamers!
Just a couple of days ago on the 27th of April, Greenheart Games released their very first video game, titled Game Dev Tycoon. Funnily enough, as I’m sure you can tell, this is actually a game about making games. Gameception?
In Game Dev Tycoon, you start your own game development company and are able to jump into the world of making video games. You can either focus mainly on developing your own games (indie) or take on publisher contracts in which you must develop a game of their choosing. After your games are released it’s actually reviewed by four sites, which is a pretty cool addition. This also ties into the publisher contracts, as with these you’re often contractually obligated to make a game that receives a score of at least a certain amount, and are penalized a large fee by the publisher if it doesn’t reach that score. Of course, you’re always free to do whatever you wish in the game and are never forced into anything, even being able to contract your studio out to develop software for other companies. This option doesn’t pay the best, but can be useful as a quick source of cash if you’re in a fix.
You’re even able to develop your own game engines, and integrate the capabilities and features into your engines that you wish to have. Of course, each feature and capability costs a little extra, so you’ll have to be careful to spend your money wisely. There’s also a research tree, so you can research better graphics and additional features for your games (such as a dialogue tree).
While playing Game Dev Tycoon, you’ll have to deal with everything involved in running a game development studio and developing a game. You start developing in your own home, then can move up to an office and hire staff. Studio isn’t doing so well? Maybe you’ll have to fire somebody, even if you don’t want to… just to save that little bit of money every month on their salary. You have to market your games, choose what parts of the game to focus development on, choose who’s developing what part… everything.
All in all, Game Dev Tycoon is looking to be a pretty awesome purchase. It costs a mere $8 and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux from the developer’s Fastspring store. It’s not currently available on Steam, but is up on Steam Greenlight and Greenheart Games has promised to provide purchasers of the game with Steam keys as well, if it ever makes it onto the platform. If you’re nervous about spending the cash, don’t be. The developers have released a demo of the game available for Windows and MAC with a Linux demo on the way, which you can download here.
Vote for the game on Steam Greenlight here.
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